Two Dissertations · §317 · John Davenant

Cap. III Rat. 10: mere beneplacitum makes works idle — Predestinati / Sigebertus

Rat. 10. If God, ignoring merits, had from mere good pleasure decreed to bless particular persons — say Paul and Peter — then good works would do nothing toward obtaining glory. So let Peter walk in good works: still glory is not credited to him from any desert of those works. Let him neglect good works entirely: God will still give him the destined glory by the force of his own good pleasure. That is highly absurd, and leans toward the Predestinarian error Sigebert's Chronicle reports: pious living's good works do not help toward glory if one is not predestinated; flagrant living's crimes do not hurt if one is.

Latin

Rat. 10. Si Deus non habens rationem meritorum, ex solo suo beneplacito decrevisset singulares personas, puta Paulum et Petrum, beare, cum bona opera nihil prorsus operarentur ad gloriam consequendam, Fac igitur Petrum in bonis operibus ambulare, tamen gloria non tribuetur illi ex ullo merito ad talia opera: fac eum bona opera prorsus negligere, Deus tamen virtute beneplaciti sui dabit illi gloriam destinatam: At hoc est valde absurdum, et propendet in errorem Praedestinatorum, quos Sigebertus in Chronico suo ostendit docuisse, Pie viventibus non prodesse bona opera ad gloriam, si Praedestinati non sint; flagitiose viventibus non obesse ulla scelera, si sint ex praedestinatis.

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John Davenant argues from Scripture that Christ's death is a remedy offered to every person, so that anyone who hears the Gospel may be called to believe, and then opens a second dissertation on predestination.

John Davenant (1572–1641) was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, bishop of Salisbury from 1621, and England's leading delegate to the Synod of Dort. A Reformed theologian of the moderate school, he defended universal atonement language within a Calvinist frame.

The Two Dissertations (1650) press two theses: that Christ died sufficiently for all, and that God sincerely calls all who hear the gospel — against the novel claim that Christ died only for the elect in every sense. They are Davenant's mature statement of the hypothetical-universalist position that divided English Calvinists.

This volume covers the opening of the first dissertation through the close of chapter 3, with the theses on the extent of Christ's death.

Date1572–1641 AD (Bishop of Salisbury; 1650 Cambridge imprint)

The 1683 reprint was not used as base text. No modern English was copied.

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